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What you're looking for is the angle you want to be sharpen the edge to,not the edge of the blade table so +1 on what tall & dark said. That is ,to use the angle cube (after zeroing it on the blade table) to measure the angle when the stone is hitting the edge of the knife. A word about the stones........not all stones,even from Ben dale are the same thickness and as you use them they will get thinner-not trying to be condesending, just trying to be as clear as possible - as they get thinner, the arm will tilt lower on the knife edge = steeper angle. On the oppisite side, if you put a thicker stone in the arm it will rise up = lower angle. This is where MadRookies' stop collar trick comes in. Once you set the angle you want to sharpen, take the stone out of the arm and set the drill collar on it. Then before changing stones. put the new stone,which WILL BE a different thickness, raise or lower the height of the post to where the new stone just fits under it and you'll be in the right neighborhood. (in his video, he gets it right on-I never have but he's MR and I'm not). Small adjustment ,then keep sharpening. To elaborate about the comment concerning compensating for the knife. Imagine a tall triangle laying on its' side-the blade table-you want to get an angle that references the center line of the triangle. If you were to lay the knife on your counter and use a protractor & straight edge you could get a degree measurement (want to know how I found out about the 3 & 4 dregrees? ya gotta cut a long slot in the protractor).

Sorry to be long winded but I hope this clarifies things a little.

Douglas

Tall Dark and Swarfy

Post subject: Re: confused about angle cube readings

Posted: Sun Jan 19, 2014 8:30 pm

Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 2:22 amPosts: 987

Zero the Angle Cube on the blade table, put a knife on it and measure the grind angle of the knife. Beware that this only works perfectly for a traditional knife with flat sides.

Some knives have flat cladding. If you can keep that flat on the blade table you might not have to worry about what angle the grind is bringing to the clambake.

It might also help to think of the dots as only a suggestion.TD&S- so many knives have convex sides I passed on angle qubeing them. Qubeing??????

Douglas

turbo v6 camaro

Post subject: Re: confused about angle cube readings

Posted: Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:01 pm

Joined: Wed May 22, 2013 1:24 pmPosts: 93

Sharp Knives wrote:The dots on the riser bar are just a guide line reference. The angle cube gives you the reality. If you have a new thick stone, the actual angle will be lower angle than an older,thinner stone. The good thing about the angle cube is that you can now set your angles precisely. To be exact in your angle, you also need to account for the angle of the knife as well. Henkles & Wustof are 4° thick knives. Most gyutos seem to be 3°. To account for the knife,you will have to add half of the knife angle,i.e 2° , to what angle you want on the edge. You mentioned that you want a 15°, so the knife on the EP is already tilting at ,say 4°, so half of that is 2°....set the arm at 17° and ,bingo, you now have a 15° edge.

Turbo- I cut a slot in the lower edge of a cheap protractor starting at zero line at the bottom of the protractor about 3/16" tall out toward the edge. Then I painted the lower edge of a straight edge with the sharpie. Next I slipped the knife into the slot with the knife laying flat the way it would on the EP blade table and its' edge touching the center line of the protractor. Place the knife edge at 90° to the protractor the way you will be sharpening. Then place the end of the straight edge on the edge of the knife-on the center line again, rest it on the knife and then read the degrees where the straight edge crosses the degree readings on the protractor. You need 3 small hands and patience.

Elegant......Not even close Accurate....Not even close I only played with this method 6-8 times 2 years ago when I started.

To my way of thinking that unless the owner has tried to sharpen the knife on his own, screws it up then brings it to you, the sharpie is still the most accurate way to start off....more accurate and a hell of alot easier and what I've been doing since.

If you have a flat sided knife,the quickest and most accurate way would be to zero the angle cube on the knife while it's on the EP blade table. If it's a convexed side you're on your own.

These days I just eyeball it then take a best guess. If I'm off 1 degree I won't lose any sleep. I'm looking for the best angle for the steel and original grind.

The only way this will help is if you decide not to do it

Douglas

BigMike

Post subject: Re: confused about angle cube readings

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 12:59 pm

Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2013 3:36 amPosts: 33

Zeroing on the knife doesn't do it either. You need to compare the angle of the table to the angle of the knife laying on it. Then you need to split the difference and compensate by half the angle. But I agree, getting a good edge anywhere close to a target angle is way better than most people are used to seeing.

Mike

turbo v6 camaro

Post subject: Re: confused about angle cube readings

Posted: Thu Jan 23, 2014 5:15 pm

Joined: Wed May 22, 2013 1:24 pmPosts: 93

thanks, i really hate it when one side of the knife has a larger area than the other !!!

Problem solved! As I thought it certainly could be, we had a case of user error. I went back and watched one of Ben's videos a few minutes ago wondering about my pivot arm setup, as that was the main wildcard here and sure enough I had the vertical guide rod in up side down which caused the stone arm to be significantly lower than designed. I switched it around and voila, the 15deg mark came in right at 16.5 w/o a knife so with the suggested -1.5deg when adding a knife, the 15deg mark came in right at 15deg rather than 9deg. Not sure how long it's been set up this way, but I've got a rusty stop collar on it so it's been that way for quite some time as that rod doesn't ever come out. Mystery solved.

SteveG

Post subject: Re: confused about angle cube readings

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 4:09 am

Forum Moderator

Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2013 6:00 pmPosts: 3002

Sweet!

Tall Dark and Swarfy

Post subject: Re: confused about angle cube readings

Posted: Fri Jan 24, 2014 5:57 am

Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 2:22 amPosts: 987

That's solved, but your knives still have that ~9* edge on them. How have they been performing? Have the edges held up? You might want to start putting a small 15* edge on for robustness and call it a productive day.

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